Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 306, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 January 1918 — A “Tramp” Vessel. [ARTICLE]

A “Tramp” Vessel.

. A “tramp” is a vessel operating over no regular route and having no regular schedule of sailings. A chartered vessel operating a regular route, bat with irregular sailings is not a “tramp.” Aside from its function OB a trade scout it is the “potential," rather than the real or actual composition of the “tramp,” that keeps freight and passenger rates low. It is as though any motor car might use the right-of-way of any railroad at time and offer cheap service should the regular service of the railroad prove to be unsatisfactory or ult»-a expensive. Always the “tramp” IB present in the sub-consciousness of a “regular route” steamship man, as a sort of noxious weed of cornpetltim. that is certain to sprout the moment he fells to keep his service up and his prices down,— Navy and Marine./ • ’T